Françoise Taylor (née Wauters) was a Belgian/British artist (1 January 1920 – 24 January 2007).

Life

Françoise Taylor (née Wauters) was born in Bressoux,

Liège Liège ( ; ; ; ; ) is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia, and the capital of the Liège Province, province of Liège, Belgium. The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east o ...

, on 1 January 1920. Her father, Charles Wauters, was Professor Emeritus at the

University of Liège The University of Liège (), or ULiège, is a major public university of the French Community of Belgium founded in 1817 and based in Liège, Wallonia, Belgium. Its official language is French (language), French. History The university was foun ...

. During the 1930s after the Wauters family had moved to

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

he was appointed

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

Consul (representative) A consul is an official representative of a government who resides in a foreign country to assist and protect citizens of the consul's country, and to promote and facilitate commercial and diplomatic relations between the two countries. A consu ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. In 1937 at the age of seventeen Françoise (then Wauters) began her studies in art at the

Académie Royale An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the g ...

in Brussels and continued as a postgraduate at the l'École nationale supérieure d'Architecture et des Arts décoratifs de La Cambre. where her tutor was the Belgian engraver Joris Minne. She moved to England in 1946 having married an Englishman in Brussels that year, first to

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

where she studied

Lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

at the

Ruskin School of Art The Ruskin School of Art is the Department of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, England. It is part of Oxford's Humanities Division. History The Ruskin School of Art grew out the Oxford School of Art, which was founded in 1865 and later ...

then

Bolton Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...

where she spent the rest of her life. From 1969 to 1982 she was Head of Art at Mount St Joseph girls' school in Bolton. She died in Bolton on January 24, 2007 aged 87.

Artistic work

While still a teenager at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts Françoise Taylor (then Wauters) won First Prize for Drawing three years in succession. She left the Académie in 1941 with only the fourth prize in that year due to her increasing tendency to elongate and distort the figures in her drawings (a characteristic she retained throughout her artistic life). She had received an excellent grounding in drawing but felt there was "nothing at the Académie Royale to stimulate the imagination". During her six years at La Cambre she specialised in engraving, book illustration and typography, for which she was awarded a Diploma with the Highest Distinction and a Mastery in Book Illustration - the first in Belgium - "avec la plus grande distinction et les félicitations du Jury". The authors whose stories she has illustrated include Sir

Thomas Malory Sir Thomas Malory was an English writer, the author of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, compiled and in most cases translated from French sources. The most popular version of ''Le Morte d'A ...

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Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

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, the

Catholic Bible The term ''Catholic Bible'' can be understood in two ways. More generally, it can refer to a Christian Bible that includes the whole 73-book canon recognized by the Catholic Church, including some of the deuterocanonical books (and parts of book ...

Alain-Fournier Henri-Alban Fournier (; 3 October 1886 – 22 September 1914),Mémoire des hommes
Secrétariat ...

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquired a re ...

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 Old Style and New Style dates, NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelist ...

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, Nils Holgersson,

Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic c ...

August Vermeylen August Vermeylen (12 May 1872, in Brussels – 10 January 1945, in Uccle) was a Belgium, Belgian writer and literature critic. In 1893 he founded the literary journal ''Van Nu en Straks'' (''Of Today and Tomorrow''). He studied history at the Fre ...

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, Filip De Pillecyn and

Ernest Claes Andreas Ernestus Josephus Claes (24 October 1885 in Zichem – 2 September 1968 in Elsene) was a Belgian author. He is best known for his regional novels, including ''De Witte'' ("Whitey"), which was the source material for the first Flemish so ...

. During her time in Oxford she also illustrated the book 'Oxfordshire' by Reginald Turnor. Amongst the tales she illustrated in detail are

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(Lewis Carroll),

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(Samuel Taylor Coleridge) and

Morte d'Arthur ' (originally written as '; Anglo-Norman French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round ...

(Thomas Malory). Her experience of living throughout the

German Occupation German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the government of Nazi Germany at ...

was reflected in her series of engravings 'Pointes Seches sur la Guerre'. These engravings depict the deprivations of life in Belgium during the war years, as well as the Deportations and the Allied Bombardment. Together with a number of her works, they are now in the permanent collection of the

Whitworth Art Gallery The Whitworth is an art gallery in Manchester, England, containing over 60,000 items in its collection. The gallery is located in Whitworth Park and is part of the University of Manchester. In 2015, the Whitworth reopened after it was transfor ...

, Manchester. Moving to Bolton"Belgian teacher and artist who loved Bolton"
''

The Bolton News ''The Bolton News'' – formerly the ''Bolton Evening News'' – is a daily newspaper and news website covering the towns of Bolton and Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury in north-western England. Published each morning from Monday to Saturday and o ...

'', Bolton, 3 February 2007. Retrieved on 10 September 2019. in the industrial North West of England her inspiration came not only from a life-long interest in fables and nursery rhymes but an environment she drew and painted with the fascinated unfamiliarity of an 'outsider': mills, railways, gasworks, coal mines, park bandstands, football scenes from Burnden Park (then the home of Bolton Wanderers) together with the people and their animals. Françoise Taylor continued to work as an artist into the 1990s. She held exhibitions in Brussels, Liège,

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

Salford Salford ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Greater Manchester, England, on the western bank of the River Irwell which forms its boundary with Manchester city centre. Landmarks include the former Salford Town Hall, town hall, ...

and Bolton and her works have been exhibited in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

and other cities. A number of her engravings and etchings are in the Royal Library of Belgium in Brussels and several in the Cabinet des Estampes in Paris.

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Taylor, Francoise 1920 births 2007 deaths 20th-century Belgian painters 20th-century Belgian women artists Belgian etchers 20th-century Belgian illustrators 21st-century Belgian illustrators Belgian women illustrators Artists from Liège Artists from Bolton 20th-century printmakers Women etchers 20th-century etchers Belgian emigrants to the United Kingdom